Thursday, July 9, 2009

My first 5k trail run

Today was my first 5k trail run as you may have guessed from my title.
Let me start out by saying running 3 miles on a treadmill is nowhere near the same as running it on a trail, even a flat dirt trail.
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I woke up about 2 hours earlier than I normally did to beat the afternoon heat. There have been many times that I planned on waking up earlier to get my workout in before it gets really hot but I never seem to make it out of bed. Just getting out of bed early was quite the accomplishment! Before I run I like to have a cup of coffee and an english muffin with cream cheese. I have found this to be the best fuel for my runs. I try to leave an hour to eat and then digest the food before I leave for my runs. Today was no different.
I was a little worried about my dog this morning. I knew she would love the run but she has been acting a little funny the past few days, all she wants to do is sleep in her crate. She got out of bed with me though and was quite curious what I was doing up so early. I told her that if she would eat some of her food I would take her for a run and it actually worked!!
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The trail I run is marked every half a mile and today I wondered if I could make it to the next marker at everyone I encountered. I made sure that I ran super slow and I tried to keep my heart rate in the same place that it is when I am on the treadmill. I had always thought of my trail as flat until today. I could feel the unevenness in my steps as my body stabilized it's self. I started today not really knowing how far I would run. I knew I wanted to run 3 miles and walk some when I was done running. When I got close to the two mile marker I was pretty sure I would turn around, run one more mile and walk one, decent but really my worst case scenario. I got to the marker and I just kept pushing on. This happened at every single half mile but still I kept on going. As I came up still running on the three mile marker I knew that I had hit my goal and was ready to turn around and walk the three miles back! My walk back was slower than normal but great. I even ran a little bit of it.
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My dog did great all 6 miles. She really loves being out there and I can't tell you the looks we get since she is so small.
This was taken on our way to the trail one day. She how excited she is?
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I have made the decision to not weigh myself until I have finished my first race. I have learned to love running and for me I don't run to lose weight. I hopefully will lose some as a nice bonus but it isn't what keeps me going. I will still be counting points but my mindset has shifted to fueling my body so that I can run.

2 comments:

  1. Go you for your firs six mile run! It *is* a lot different running on a treadmill compared to running outside, so great job!

    I know you aren't currently attending WW meetings, if I'm not correct, so I'm not sure if you're up on the new lingo of "filling foods" (which are basically everything that was CORE if you're familiar with that). I've been going for the last few months and once my mileage increased I found that I couldn't keep up with my points so now I'm eating all "filling foods"/CORE foods and it is awesome at fueling the body and when I want bread/sugar/etc. I just use the 35 flex points since "filling foods"/CORE foods just need to be eaten until you're satisfied without counting points.

    Sorry so long, but I just wanted to throw that out there :) You're doing great!

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  2. Hey there!! I am a farily new reader but i just want to ongratulate you on how u have uped your endurance!! ISnt it wonderful!! I started running 3 weeks ago and at first i wanted to die 1/ mile in ... now i can go 2-3 miles ...depending on the heat (i am from miami and hte humidity makes my hr spike 10 175-185)!!! Well good luck on your racE!!!!

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